Impact Evaluation of the SOS Family Strengthening Programme in T/A Tsabango, Lilongwe, Malawi

Background

To mitigate the problem of orphan hood and child abandonment in Malawi, SOS Children's Villages Malawi initiated the Family Strengthening Programme in 2003. Through this strategic priority SOS Children's Villages works for the prevention of child abandonment with the belief that the biological/extended family is the best social institution that can provide the security and care necessary for a child's growth and development. The programme has been funded by Norad through SOS Children's Villages Norway's multi-year cooperation agreement with Norad.

Purpose/objective

An evaluation was conducted with an aim of assessing the impact of the SOS Children's Villages Family Strengthening Programme interventions on the lives of the children, families and communities that are targeted in T/A Tsabango area. The evaluation team examined the capacity of families to provide appropriate care and protection for their children, assessed the community's self reliance in supporting vulnerable children and families, and examined the commitment and capacity of the programme partners in preventing the children from losing the care of their families.

Methodology

The impact assessment was conducted using a combination of methods which included a household survey, a community survey (focus group discussions) and individual interviews with beneficiaries. The tools used included a household questionnaire, a semi structured checklist for the focus group discussions and another household questionnaire capturing information on the key thematic areas; (i) Food and Nutrition Security, (ii) HIV and AIDS and (iii) Education, and (iv) Psychosocial support. A total of 112 households from four selected villages were selected for the household survey. In addition to the household survey, under-five children were assessed in terms of their nutritional status.

Key findings

Demographic and socio economic characteristics: About 30 percent of the households that were interviewed during the survey were female headed, and only half of the household heads were married. The average age of heads of households was 48 years while the average household size was 5.3 persons per household. Illiteracy levels were high in the study area with a substantial proportion of the heads of households (43%) reporting that they had never attended school, while about 29% and 23% of the household heads, had attended lower primary and senior primary education, respectively.

Agriculture: The introduction of community gardens by SOS Children's Villages is one of the outstanding contributions towards food security. Community gardens are managed by village development committee and the proceeds from the gardens are shared between community members. The community garden initiative has been appreciated by almost all communities that participate in the initiative. Despite this the food security situation for households in the study area remains bad. These findings suggest a high vulnerability of households to food insecurity and poverty, which have a direct bearing on child development as households remain food insecure. The general perception among households was that SOS Children's Villages had contributed to improvement in food security, despite the current food insecurity situation.

Water and sanitation: The majority reported that they were drinking safe water from either, the tap, boreholes, or protected wells. The proportion of households having access to safe drinking water in the catchment area (~100%) improved significantly from the baseline implying that SOS Children's Villages' initiatives have had a significant impact in the area in terms of improving access to water. SOS Children's Villages trained some communities in the area in water management as well; however the need for further training in water management and sanitation was expressed by a number of beneficiaries.

Healthcare services: SOS Children's Villages provides health care services through the SOS-medical clinic in Lilongwe. SOS Children's Villages also runs a mobile clinic, and provides training to Home Based Care volunteers. Partnerships with other community based organizations that are active in the area of home based care have been established. The communities expressed feelings that such initiatives have enhanced their capacity to respond to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. However, the programme's intervention in the area of health provision is tampered by the long distances that families have to travel to access health care. Further, SOS Children's Villages' community health interventions are limited by too few medical staff and a difficult working relationship with some of its partners.

Psychosocial support for the family: SOS Children's Villages has provided psycho-social training for households supporting children. The training has been highly relevant, effective, and efficient. The parents/caregivers reported high levels of parent-child bonding as evidenced by for example, the sharing all meals. However, this training has been provided to a limited number of households.

Education support: Through programme SOS Children's Villages supports pupils and students at three levels of education (primary, secondary and tertiary level). The programme has supported children in different ways including supplies of school stationery, food and clothes among others. The support that the children are getting has had a big impact on them. The positive impact that has been seen is an indication that the educational support is effective.
Relevance of SOS Family strengthening Interventions: The study results have revealed that communities find all interventions implemented through the Family Strengthening program to be highly relevant. Despite the significant achievement that the Family Strengthening Programme has made, there are areas where SOS Children's Villages needs to improve or adjust in order for the program to achieve the intended goals and maximum impact on the beneficiaries. The following is a list of proposed recommendations:

Recommendations

Food security and Nutrition: Although respondents felt that the food security situation for the communities had slightly improved with support from SOS Children's Villages, the incidence of food insecurity remains high. It is recommended that SOS Children's Villages: -strengthen collaboration with other institutions, -starts an initiative or a process of linking the landless in Tsabango to the current Community Based Land Development Programmes under the Ministry of Land and Housing, -incorporation of crop diversification to reduce malnutrition and improve nutritional status of children and other household members on a sustainable long term basis, -communities should be taught dietary guidelines for nutrition in Malawi.

Psychosocial support: It has been noted that although the programme measure has been initiated, most households have not yet received training, and the level of awareness on psychosocial support remains low. Therefore, it is recommended that SOS Children's Villages should consider scaling up its training and sensitization on psychosocial support.

Water and Sanitation: The programme should consider enhancing its water management training at community level to ensure proper management of the water resources being constructed in the community.

Partnerships with CBOs and other organisations: The programme should: -consider signing memorandum of understanding (MOU) with other organisations especially community based organisations and revisit the MOUs from time to time to make sure that there is good working relationship between the partners, -increase the training of the community health workers and village volunteers which would assist communities to continue with the activities that were initiated by the programme.

Education Support: The programme should: -increasingly encourage children to remain in school after enrolling, through civic education initiatives targeting parents and guardians of the children including the children themselves, -increasingly involve the secondary schools decisions about student recruitment, -increasingly make proper follow-ups on all the students' class performance to help identify students who are not doing well so that something could be done. -make sure that the support to the children is always timely, -provide financial assistanc to children willing and in need of summer classes.

Health: The evaluation findings show that the programme is doing a commendable job in providing information on HIV/AIDS in the study area. The programme has to continue with providing this kind of information as a way of preventing the spread of HI virus and teaching people how to relate to those who are living with the virus. It is further recommended that the programme: -provide beneficiaries with transport that could be communally operated to move the chronically sick, elderly and bedridden to the clinics with relative ease, this could fill the gap existing due to lack of emergency services in these areas, -considers the establishment of a regular mobile clinic service, -always make sure that that replenishment of drugs is done on a regular basis.